Steam Tags Updated With Reporting Feature After Major Abuse

Steam Tags were implemented just two days ago, but it certainly didn't take very long for things to awry. You'd think Valve would have learned its lesson from the Steam Greenlight launch. If you're a frequent visitor of OCC, you may recall that I wrote an editorial back when Steam Greenlight was launched, entitled "Steam Greenlight - From Novel Idea to Train Wreck in Sixty Seconds." I also mentioned that I had considered the title, "Valve Clearly Underestimates the Stupidity and Immaturity of the Human Race." Sadly, both those titles would be apt for Steam Tags.

Suffice it to say, users started abusing the tagging system, some with overdone memes ("Half-Life 3 Confirmed"), some mildly humorous, and some just downright offensive. Well, Valve did call it a beta for a reason, right? Last night, Valve updated the system to hopefully improve it and reduce the trolling. The major change was the addition of a new reporting option. By clicking on the flag option next to a tag (you must click the plus sign to the right of the popular tags first), you can now report the tag as "offensive/abusive tag," "not appropriate for this product," "not a helpful tag," or "spoiler." In addition, tags now require more users before they'll show on the popular tags section.

These are certainly reasonable changes that leaves one wondering why Valve didn't implement them in the first place. While individual persons may occasionally display intelligence, as a whole, society is dumb and cannot be trusted. That's just Humans 101.